The immortal learns
by KittiMarlowe
Summary: Not everyone knows how to love. To others it comes naturally. Here's to two people who did know how to love and made it their entire lives. AragornLegolas. Slash.
1. Chapter 1

1 

Prologue 

Plumeria is a bloom that resides in Rivendell, only Rivendell, Mirkwood's depths are too wild, too much the sundered gardens of broken twigs and grey satyrs for it to take root, delve and return year after year. Winter deadens the earth; only wood tempered by time and tide remain, and the undergrowth that sings in rhyme of the seasons, murmurous and everlasting.

In my younger years plumeria's delicacy made it vulnerable in my eyes, easily broken, easily torn and ripped petal from petal as it remains silent—there are no screams, nothing to hinder or signal its destruction. And afterward all that is left is easily exhaustible: forgotten.

In an immortal life change is inevitable—I have learned. The plumeria's vivid magic means more to me than its pandering to the sun: they shine brighter in mist, they have lingered long with me. You don't often forget the first time.

It was in Rivendell, years ago; I did not think my father knew of this when I returned—but time changes much, I learned, I think he understood, he knew, I'm certain of it. He must have recognized the light in my eyes like I had seen the alteration in his own—I later identified this as regret but with the strange resignation which was alien in his strength: blue eyes, like the sea, the sky.

I remember a boy, who was later a man, now he is nothing at all, nothing. It is not possible to recall lost dreams, I learned this as time's meandering rivers roared on as I wandered and was borne back into the weir of lost time, against the current of reality, following the will of…dream. In search of lost time I have found the plenitudes that gave always been there—I am an elf, life is finite only where geography rises up in the shape of mountains and boundaries—and I have lost much, recovered nothing.

Time: the newness and intensity of each breath is what brings the downfall of all men—death. And this is also what brings man's elations, however short and temporal, they transcend my immortality—there is that need to accomplish, to make the world remember when they no longer remember the world.

Perhaps one day Gondor will fall, disintegrate as all stone will. Perhaps this civilization will sometime only remain as a splendid shipwreck, mired in time and mortality's greatest foe—but I will remember him. I will remember him, hold him in rapture, continue to long after stone has been subsumed by time.

I should tell this story from the beginning; I should leave something for others to remember when even I have forgotten. Still, I don't expect anyone to know it better than I.

I'll begin here, on this morning, this certain morning—I suppose it could be said that history truly began on that dawn, all else is insignificant, not yet formed, those ripples matter not to me.

* * *

please review. 

here, multiple choice options:

a--excellent. compelling.

b--fair. not terribly intriguing.

c--yuck. pretentious.

d--please change it.

e--tiresome, boring.

and, tell me which character this is, ok? it might be quite vague but i wouldn't know it.

thanks, feel free to flame.


	2. Chapter 2

Evening

Evening came downtumble—intimate, and the last light was tremulous as I rode with the others, the horses nickered and no one spoke: quiet is a kind of wisdom that comes with age. The sky swirled with scanty tealeaves, birds really, we entered the hunting grounds—Lord Elrond's, these people took no more than was needed to sustain themselves, and every kill was as gentle as sleep, I have watched them hunt, but to kill is necessary, to kill so as to be allowed to eat, eat and drink from the earth and…live.

There is always the faint beauty of the unknown in places which are not home, even if the destination be the Last Homely House: so we go.

* * *

We dismounted in a square of light that came spilleth through a high window—some marvelous architecture which enabled it to be so, I had always suspected it to be somewhat intentional, this suspicion which lessened the magic not any less.

It was an anomaly—we usually arrived in the morning.

Murmurs were about us, someone took the reins of my horse—then they were gone, tails and hooves in the dim metres away from us.

Two familiar figures stood under the archway, like live feathers and they rustled with the voices of mithril and velvet. A silhouette I was uncertain of stood by them, shorter and not quite old though quite desperate to be as I had found later.

He was a lake, a pale lake and the rosy light made his face home as last light left it; dark eyebrows and I could see he was not quite one of us, nor was he altogether, though mostly human.

"Old friend…you arrived rather later than expected," this was Elladan, half impatient, mostly amused, and a deluge of other greetings came forth from two mouths.

"…this is Estel."

Elrohir fluttered an arm over the dark head, then squeezed the shoulder, a very slender squeeze from a very slender hand, slip of the moon. Elf-hands.

Estel: I am eight—

Still childish voice.

--and have lived here all my life. Would you like to see my ears?

Elladan and Elrohir laughed, the Mirkwood contingent behind me smiled and murmured and leaned into each other to whisper—I know them, wood-phantoms—Estel did not bristle, this apparently happened often.

He lifted a hand—plump like a newborn flower—and raised the thick fringe: the ear was rounded, or perhaps a little pointed.

I: How very unusual—

I continued; _less patronizing_ I told myself

--so you are not an elf, and _who_ might you be?

"Estel," and he was confused. I already knew his name and I asked, why? Came the laughter again, like wind.

So we did not really understand, neither of us did the other, it was only later that I realized this was the most succinct truth I have ever heard.

* * *

The company entered the warmer halls; it was autumn now, red leaves gathering crimson, words failing to hold her mellow dirges, gather the discordant season and prevent her from falling out of love. The wind sent summer spindrift and empty-eyed, she left; but we were not, eyes still full, we celebrated.

The night was full of symbols and I saw something new and as yet unidentified in the plumeria which made its descent drifting by me, the petals I confused with the wings of a butterfly, wind-borne and eager as though freed from a long-shut box. Perhaps it was both; some symbols possess a kind of duality.

More exuberant dances faded to slow circles stepping back and forth to a more slumbersome lute as night wore on, I sat on the winding arbour and listened to Estel's intermittent chatter. In between I told him tales concerning Glorfindel—often a blaze of magic and chivalry more often the marigold, sometimes a dandelion. We discussed the personalities of various flowers.

I: I am unsure of what you would be…something young…

I glanced to my left, he was slumped over, asleep and the dark head was a slight warmth pressing into my side—it was late, nearly moonset. I tightened the circle of my arms about him and wove through the musk which breathed all over this garden, this blue mist speaketh of wine and nighttime and the belief that the sky extended far beyond sight.

Couples dipped and fell into each others' arms, silk plucked chords unharsh and insubstantial in their softness, skirts and hair intermingled—neverending youth. I thought about the boy. I did not retire him to his bedroom—the corridors were myriad and many silent doors—we went to the library.

The doors and carpets sighed.

I selected a volume which I could not read for the window pandered to me; I watched for sunrise and when it came I felt myself inflamed by his light.

* * *

_LegolassQ, I'm uncertain if you know this: this is a rewrite of my story--Ever more--so as to make it more accessible, judging from what certain reviewers say, the story needs it. So I'm trying a new format._

_Everyone else: please review. I'm down to begging._

_Here, just answer this if you'd be so kind: what's the mood like? _

_Still, no obligations. Thanks._


	3. Chapter 3

The first time 

I did not realize immediately that it was the same boy, even after the introductions; as I lay half-awake in the curiously still hours of night, the air full of life and an absent breathing of another, I recalled. I had known him well, very well, many years ago.

He was an infant, with a kind of vulnerable intensity, I sang for him, murmurous, just a few lines I dredged from my own childhood, and he smiled, and for a minute that was the world, the universe and it felt complete, wide, wild, where the gnawings of every empty heart ceased.

We were old friends who had…forgotten.

So that is how I came to know Estel.

* * *

The moon's casual magic lent itself to our conversation, and made what might have been inadequate surreal. He was not a fairy child, being tangible, solid and certain ectoplasm, but on that night I felt young again, his words were childish, I felt no scorn and replied in similar fashion and what was truthful was more beautiful, more honest because it was simple.

He chattered, being unable to sleep after not stirring 'til a little past noon. –What is it like in Mirkwood? Are there really giant spiders?

We were in my room, the windows were open, large, but somewhat full with two figures sitting there, perfectly intimate. I can see it, the image is quite absolute, quite enchanting, despite the years between.

--Well, yes, there are. Larger than any where else. They are monsters.

And the moon settled pure and unruffled, to watch. The muslin curtain billowed, white, but blue with shadow.

--Have you ever gone hunting for them?

Strange, the tranquility existed despite the glumness the topic would usually have evoked in me. I suppose that was the rarity in youth and naivety.

--Plenty of times. Afterwards we always make sure to destroy the nests.

--What about the little baby spiders? Won't they be hurt too?

Now there was a dilemma. How to answer a question like that without breaking the idea that everything begins untainted and unsoiled at birth, that not everything is clean and glowing with goodness? I never did like to lie.

--Not everything is good, Estel. You have to know this.

_For this is the age you live in my child. _

--They're evil?

--Yes. They are.

_How I wish it could be any other way. _

--I see. I wish it didn't have to be like this.

And the mood was restored, the moon still shining and lovely. I told him of my childhood, in a less sullied world, through eyes less blue.

It is not bad thing to be naïve. No, not at all.

* * *

There are some days that pass by in flashes, bright and full, like a flower so bursting with joy and fruit that it is at the brink of withering and failure and death.

This day was one of them: precision and speed faster than the eye could track.

Archery.

He was not particularly good at this, which was probably why Legolas was so adamant on teaching him.

Archery was a craft Legolas had shown an aptitude for since childhood, it was the woodwind personified, arrows were a decent, unbrutal weapon, soaring without vanity, straight and clean and their wings were gifted to them by the wind that bore them. There was that familiarity of it, gracefully modest; a harp crafted for more practical purposes.

The bow favoured patience over willful aspiration, which was the main reason contributing to Estel's ineptness with it.

Dawn had brought four figures to the archery grounds, Elladan and Elrohir had been reluctant initially to participate in what they deemed an unworthy cause, after all, they were competent as instructors, but eventually agreed. Estel had only been too keen, there was an inextinguishable want to learn in him.

Flight was crooked and it embedded itself firmly into the earth.

Another was strung and set loose.

"Not so fast. Concentrate on the target."

Swift and wayward.

"Here, let me show you. Your stance…" he knelt on the slightly damp earth, and grasped both wrists then replaced them on the bow.

----

Ten arrows. A brightened sky, fully warm, the sun was an inquisitive one as it spied upon the goings-on far, far below its lofty perch.

"Was that better?"

A slight nod followed in response.

----

----

Another arrow accepted the challenge offered by the board, edging closer to the middle, a small red spot.

He was less careless in aiming as the day progressed. The midday heat wedded intense sunshine to the redolence added generously by fresh blooms.

----

----

By nightfall he was thoroughly worn-out, but satisfaction accompanied this ache that was making itself known, satisfaction from more than one individual.

----

* * *

LegolassQ--you might find some of this familiar. Bear with me. I'm going to salvage some scenes out of my previous work. From chapter 6 onwards both stories will have similar chapters.

Everyone--keep reviewing, they're nice to have and you're nice to be giving to me. So keep up the niceness!


	4. Chapter 4

Transitions

_Misty hair, furtive fingers and the refusal of this amorphous figure to step out of the unending twilight of the trees. A dark place but there is light, the moon erratic and half orange, raving in the grape-hung night. _

_No, it is not possessed of insanity but it is not yet full, gibbous and obvious in its wish. This one, the one over there who should have green eyes—and they surprised me by being blue yes, they did._

_There is something gorgeous about him, it's a him, something unknown, something impossible, something unobtainable. That is the beauty in it. We must learn to appreciate what we have._

_He's a singer, hair and light like the rippling of a played harp. Young and old, the lovely defiance of time. Maybe because it likes him so much. Time appreciates what it has. I think that 'it' might be a feminine. There's something wonderful about the feminine nature, that it knows instinctively to appreciate. The male spirit has, perhaps a little stereotypically, been too assertive, possessive because it wants to protect._

_Let's see what happens next then. The figure is nearly gone, my dreams. And so I extend my arms, reach further farther, will I run fast enough…_

* * *

Memory 

_There was a time in Mirkwood, as there were many times, it was remembered vaguely, not with the weighty salience of finality, but the passing memory of continuity. _

_It was a day hazy with autumn, gentle wines of russet and disorganized poetry beneath the boughs of late bloom, and now hazy also with the years between. He recalled this as it was a day they spent outdoors, sweet marvel of fruit and maturity—Mirkwood was a brighter place then._

_The stream was not as ebullient as it had in new spring, it gurgled, reflection was cast; their ripples showed distortion—this was the way of time._

"_So Little Greenleaf, who do you want to marry when you grow up?" his father's affection had always been evident, affection and pride in his only son; the child fingered the wild flowers, they were lush and full, on the brink of decline, but they shone with the moment, for the moment._

"_I know! I want to marry Naneth." He named that irreplaceable feminine influence in every child's universe; in his eyes, there was no woman fairer._

_Thranduil chuckled, a low sound, dulcet and goldenrod. "Ah, but Little Greenleaf, Naneth is already married to me."_

"_Oh, alright then." Legolas furrowed his brow as he tried to think of another being he was remotely likely to marry._

"_Mirithil will do then." _

"_Mirithil, are you certain?" Thranduil recalled a certain little elfling who had crawled into his arms, recalcitrant and petulant as his nanny had refused to allow him to eat more than three spoonfuls of maple syrup at breakfast, he disagreed with her reasoning that more was too rich for little elflings like him. He remindedefore I left the old town, now even _ha_zier with the years between we were three, now two. His grief was a lasting kind, and I could not quite reconcile this _ne_w, darker image of an elf to the one I knew before. The fortress of the floating world shook, I entered the circle of his arms, I and tucked it into his father's hair, "There; that matches with your hair. It is prettier than your crown too."_

_Laughter filled the glade, much like the ripples heard before, then a high squealing joined it as Thranduil scooped his son into his arms and twirled him."_

"_I'm flying!"_

- - -

Childhood: some slow mellow town on the edge of extinction, but always and definitely infinite; for me it is somewhere in the sleepy remembrances of yesteryear, but it does not sulk at neglect. It just is as I left it, everpresent.

I remember my mother; she stays there in that old town, not much to be said. She is part of the world that belongs to no one, perhaps it is best, when the innocence of childhood is gone, flaws appear, shadows become material. There is an old glamour in not knowing. And only the brave dare to know and learn.

Father and I; something I am rather proud of, we are secretive but not mysterious, as a child I imagined we were the sole inhabitants of some wild lyrical floating world, Mirkwood came second, it formed the tangible and my father was king, an idea I was only vaguely aware of and did not care to investigate.

Before I left the old town, now even hazier with the years between we were three, now two. His grief was a lasting kind, and I could not quite reconcile this new, darker image of an elf to the one I knew before. The fortress of the floating world shook, I entered the circle of his arms, I have never doubted my father's affection, but I suspect, always have and still do, that when he looked at me with that peculiar emotion in his eyes at that moment, he realized something. I was the only one, the only little elfling there would ever be.

Mother figures in my more fantastic dreams, more ivory and ideas than a face. I was young, the elven equivalent of four in mannish terms.

Still, I have been told that I resemble my mother, carry her little details, I wonder if that was painful for my father, to see a living remnant of the never-again wife.

There are dregs that survive the tragedy—a portrait hung in my father's bedroom is one, not particularly spectacular, and I prefer it that way, to have my mother's image as plain as possible, not dressed with a rented splendour.

She surprised me by being dark haired, I had known this, it had always been a fact. Still, I stroked my own hair, so different from hers as I confronted the picture for the first time after someone informed me of the resemblance.

I wonder about it sometimes, is it really there at all? My father seemed to think so, he ever mentioned it and though I might doubt it, I keep in mind his covert praise. In any case, there are facets of a character which pictures cannot convey.

It happened quickly, in childbirth, not some brutal, hurtling incident, the exact details are unknown to me and rather unimportant to me. I do know that it was a brother I might have had. He came, cold and quiet, slightly blue, a dead silent presence which awed me then and now too. it is really that simple, life and death, death and life. One moment moving, heaving with labour, choked with a stifling pain, a woman in the darkness and also the light of childbirth, and in the next moment gone, gone with movement, memory, gone with all the moments she had had and the moments which might have been.

So, after all this introspection, I present to you a real and definite fact, we are a family of two. I love my father dearly.

* * *

There is a place just beyond Mirkwood, where time runs in tandem to with towns, cities, Gondor, Mordor, evil, changing morality, undying mortality. That place is one of Men, they chose that certain place, down river, down the river leading away, out of the shadows of the cool under-eaves of the wood.

Ashes of age, that irremovable stain and still quite lively with children, tattered homes, and those less weary. This is mortality, when you see the old and the young and the almost acceptance that they will all end in the dusk, somewhere in the west.

I visited this place (once a while elves enter this place—it is no longer quite rare, we are nothing more than slight curiousities) a visit that came in the months following my return to the woods.

I felt even a little lost amongst the people who would leave before us, and yet inherit the earth despite their clamour and inconstancy, their short memories.

So many people: the girl in the torn skirt, dusty but still new and shining. The one in his prime whose life was mostly purpose, less love, less emotion. The ones who thought less—children in the mid-season—and all was fleeting. The thoughtless ones, careless, who looked brutal but seductively vulgar—to put a name on them they would be whores, almost decent by daylight's transformation.

A dog roved the streets like he owned them, maybe he did. A marketplace bursting with sound and light.

Some stray puppy—it reminded me oddly of Estel, dark, innocent and curious. I think perhaps it liked me too; it followed me, at the end of the tour around the marketplace, just as we left for what must have been unfamiliar territory for it, it left us, and I think I saw a larger one, a mother I hoped, herding it away.

Trips to the town were often for trade and sometimes to conduct the self-appointed duty of the elves to see that all was right and nothing had happened which would affect our territory. This was of the latter; here is a rough idea of the day's happenings: an inspection of the denizens of the town, particularly its shadier districts. Then there was the visit we paid to the ruler—he was almost indolent with lack of activity. This character had air of vague grief about him—that of the unfulfilled, unaccomplished and yet he was too aged and far too much a creature of habit to change himself.

--No, no trouble at all. Had been his response, he extended an invitation for us to stay; half eager, half cursory.

We declined, politely, also cursory. I remember this strange ritual of our two parties; the slow dance, awkward, graceless circle we made as we pushed each other back and forth as we were expected to.

Afterward came some idle wandering, only a short while though, 'til the Mirkwood contingent returned: there wasn't much to see. It was not a so much a town of regrets as it was a sleepy place, lost in the weir of time, trapped in their own idylls. There were no vestiges of a lost glamour, but the plaintiveness of a child who could nnot grow up, only old.

Still, there was the youthfulness typical of Men. And I hope, whatever of it that can be preserved is preserved. I hope and continue to Hope.

* * *

The daffodils solidified with the sun shining through them, the poppies were bright, so bright that no one and nothing could compare with them. It is easy to see how anyone could fall in love with this plane of the universe, so easy to see its unpretentious glory, that it becomes hard to see how anyone could possibly fall _out_ of love with it.

Or perhaps…not so much falling out of love, but losing illusion as he had put it. He was leaving, a very good friend of mine:

--I am leaving, going over the sea.

And I said to him: …the unimportant words of consolation…

He was gentle in that way, very much a friend—it is not that the world has become less than what it used to be, but that…the idea of its magic is gone. I see at last…the world is decaying…for me it is. I must go before it festers.

--It's a point of view, an opinion. Not a rule. Now, you stay here as long as you can. Stay, because it is a most beautiful thing we have, stay because it will fester for all without preservation. Just stay with him.

And at this, he knelt to grasp the earth. He was wistful at leaving despite having had his mind made up by some tragedy, what it was is simple and obvious but no less painful and full in its malice. An orc attack had taken his sister, the family had fragments strewn throughout the ages of his life, all disappearing at random, and the keepsake was always quiet somber devastation.

Looking back at what he said I can see the little inflections of his personality. He refered to the earth as a male entity, in his decidedly male life many things were so. Those that were feminine were either obviously so: a doe, a flower, ambiguous ones were rare. The moon was such an example, claimed by him for his sister, now gone. So that was his life, a mostly male family and male community and male community, being away for long periods on patrol.

About how he had changed. This melancholy wisdom was almost sudden and drastic, his astuteness was typically coloured with humour and the newness of adventure. I wonder if it can ever be restored; the mind once stretched to newer heights can never return through the portal, back to the younger days.

So, that would be my friend, nameless to you because I would not want to keep him to this earth, however symbolically.

There is a question which comes to me often in the dark; is it better to remember, or to be a bird, white and free-winged: to forget and just let life melt into the clouds as though it was not ever there?

* * *

_Please review—I'm dying._

_LegolassQ—thanks for your comments. They were very helpful, thank you for investing time and effort to say something useful._

_I'll think on that. Is this any better?_

_And also, _

_Thank you to everyone who reviewed, they are appreciated and cherished to the nth degree._

_If anyone has criticism, please bring it up. Flames welcome._

_Kit._


	5. Chapter 5

7

Leaves falling with the vigour of snow and though dry they swept the wooded floor with the nearly deadened hush that comes only with a resigned heart. In the deep mists of exhaling branches came a figure, weary, and another with a sense of the depraved about it.

The tangled breaths of Mirkwood distilled sunlight as it fell, and it landed, light, dilapidated, and sacred on the floor: tremulous and almost fearful. Shadows leaned forth, the goldenrod spirits filling the space between shivered and shrank. The phantasms wended their way forth through the amorphous trees—the same sleepy watchers that echoed a holocaust. Shudders resounded.

One was taller, hardy and something unmistakably noble clung to the silhouette, the other crouched; decrepit and bitter, rancorous mutterings. It tried to pull away and the taller figure grasped it sharply: a wounded cry. The sound of something with a heart poached and gone. They drew closer.

The rustles made were barely perceptible but the man cast an upward glance at where the scout had been moments before; he credited the movement to a bird and moved on. He followed the path as it dipped into a grove, shrubbery that had become wild and untamed with the years of rampant growth, it embodied the very shadows it captured within its gnarled fingers, intertwined, wood, once good and uncorrupted—it lay there as a tragic remnant: wood and blackness kissing and inseparable.

The man's ragged cloak, worn and rugged as he himself surged into the grove, twisting as the winds tore at it—pulling pulling—he was gone.

The scout took note and dived from his perch to a branch below and then from this tree to the next, the wood pliant and willing beneath him.

* * *

The wood was left as quiet as it had ever been, ever.

He had only been twenty, a mere stripling according to the elven calendar—according to that of his own race he was a man, due to begin life on his own.

Where did he truly stand?

Lothlorien confused him, the golden mist held him wrapt and surely he was as a leaf on the waves, turbulent stormy and intemperant, dream met life here, both entities transcending the ghastly gates of ivory that were usually fastened, firm and definite. Here there were no such borders. Dream and life wandered freely; and in this prison phantasmagoria wandered, met him, cornered him and were cruel, a caress and a whisper: all murmurous dialogue, then they left and he, heady with agony and bliss all the same.

Not Estel—Aragorn.

The name was harder, harsher. More like that of Men. Less like the Elves. It was only when he encountered both that he realized the startling difference between them, hounds, two worlds each fraught with their own menaces like hounds, they chased him, up the precipice and held him there.

He waited for the blow to fall. And it did. He knew what path he must take.

Events past and gone, swept by time, condemned to live only in history: all were resurrected on that day in spring; Lord Elrond released the hell he kept from him. Rivendell was no longer quite the shelter it was constructed to be. No ramparts of stone can ever protect you from the truth and the conscience that follows it wherever it may choose to go.

Why?

He leaned by a mallorn, willful but with grace, and thought. And thought.

---

She bowed her head and listened as the gales descended in their parabola, rustling the trees, these beings who whispered and shivered intermittently: the muse was amongst them now—muse of many things, of all the things she embodied, tragedy was one. She made it so unbearably beautiful.

And the golden mist transmuted the forest to a heady brilliance, incited by fitful sunshine; the moment lulled on a contemplative note, and was broken. She heard footsteps. Not an elf but quieter than a human's.

It drew near, faintly stirring fallen leaves from their rest. She did not hide, it was no menace.

He emerged and looked up.

---

She was the purest of new climate, pleasant and more temperate than the summer though radiant as all summers should be.

Dark haired and dark eyed, he registered these little details and found little less to say. it seemed unworthy for him to record, in verse or in prose, the sublimely transcient immortality she exemplified.

Aragorn bowed deeply; he did not know her name.

"Aragorn, son of Arathorn." He spoke, he could not lie to her, he could no longer use the name of the only father he had ever known.

---

He was earthly and yet unearthly. Arwen found thoughts fleeting as they ran along faster than they could be acknowledged.

She spoke and he listened.

---

To look upon her was to drink from a forest pool—which forest pool, he recognized one, this surrounded by the darkly amorphous trees, isolated in a glade, he had known it before—and drink again and again.

Aragorn drank—he knew it could not last._ It could not last._

* * *

Gollum had been most disagreeable that day, he seemed to know the forest they were encroaching on was the domain of the elves. And despite the darkness of the wood, Aragorn recognized a distinctly elvish air. They brought more light than the sun.

Not that Gollum had ever been well-behaved and acquiescent, he kicked and scratched his keeper and tore ravenously at the fish Aragorn had been generous enough to catch for him.

He still did not know why he humoured the creature. Perhaps in its terrible dilapidation it inspired pity from others. Aragorn preferred not to dwell on these questions and instead did what was required of him. He took Gollum to Mirkwood.

The strange pair had journeyed far; Aragorn's stealth had whisked them over leagues with little trace of their trespass over unfriendly lands, and they arrived unheralded in the bleak wood.

The action itself was ironic: he would not enjoy his stay in Mirkwood, strange that his only opportunity to see the forest—an idea of legendary proportion, ripening seed planted there many years ago by a friend—came under hostile circumstances. He was there for duty's sake, he expected nothing but to have the wretch off his hands.

His impression of Mirkwood was smoky but uncorrupted by any tales he might have heard, he knew that under the eaves of the wood came exhalation, the rise and fall of old songs—trees. But he had not known the thickness of the foliage and the sparseness of the elves.

He was a stranger. Sunlight seemed to cower here, and he was perhaps more than a little regretful of his predestined path: away from Arwen and in an untamed land of strangling vines. Lothlorien's beauty was pale and benign, witchlike but softly brilliant. Here there was nothing, a void that rested upon leaf upon leaf upon leaf.

His heart pulsed and its old chant assumed itself: _I am I am I am—_what was he, how unanswerable that question was. Interspersed in the pauses of his monologue came the whimpering of Gollum, a distorted, altered creature. It would never see the light of day the same way again, it would never be restored to 'he', Gollum would always be an 'it'.

The trees rustled, Gollum cowered: he feared much, but in his erratic moods, he would often assert himself as a being beyond redemption, so much so that it has nothing more to lose.

A bough was rumpled somewhere over his head, the ranger peered upward: nothing, it was probably a bird, rare in the poisoned outskirts of the jungle.

Following the murky trail Aragorn dragged Gollum with him and resisted being lured back into contemplation: Mirkwood was not a place where one could let one's guard down, he would not fail.

"Hush, you." Gollum snarled in response but no more was heard: they were gone, hidden by tangled undergrowth.

* * *

Mirkwood's elves were cloistered deep in the woods, even the archaic stone of their fortress whispered, veiny with knowledge—familiar with the elves.

The corridors were winding and led underground even, still, a wind blew and it was as the breezes that found their way below ground: pervaded with the enchanted rusticity of the elves, it was an odd feeling, the feeling of age and youth all at once.

Gollum drew close to him and clamoured for mercy, he found the elves a threat apparently and his whimpers became more and more prevalent in the unearthly silence of Thranduil's halls. Aragorn was uncertain whether to extend sympathies or feel great joy, the taunting little shadow that had haunted his steps was now chased by his own fears—as a boy he had always loved and pitied things smaller than he, was this a change others underwent as they walked the lonely passage to adulthood, or was this alteration due to the rugged life of the ranger's?

He wandered the halls with his guide and probed deep: no, he still retained his love of the good—his love for Arwen persisted. He could see her face, almost, if only it were not punctuated by these incessant footfalls, if only these screams would leave… no no, they would not go, they came from his dogged ghost.

Gollum bore a mutinous look in his eyes, this and more Aragorn perceived as the scraggly hand tugged at his cloak, causing him to peer downward.

It hissed. "Leave this place. Leave, now!"

"No," the answer was a resolute one, the creature writhed in agony.

"He is a peculiar one." The elf turned and paid Gollum the attention he had been trying to evade for the first time. The look was mildly distasteful, perhaps a hint of curiousity was visible as well, but Gollum shrunk back from the elven gaze and was hushed.

And so they continued their sojourn through the labyrinth of carven stone and the winding vines, boughs and leaves blossoming from it.

The unlikely trio stopped by an almost imposing set of doors, they were shut but in their quietly communicative way promised truth and revelation.

"The king." It was not strictly a proclaimation, it lacked the pompadour commonly found and expected with royalty, but the tone was reverent, Aragorn could see this much.

The doors swung open, Aragorn held his breath.

---

The king leaned forward, scrutinizing Gollum, then shifted his gaze to the wretch's keeper.

"So you are Aragorn. Heir of Ilsidur." The tone was calm and wavered between neutrality and slight, very slight inquiry, it gave nothing away, still Aragorn wondered: had those eyes hardened, had those words meant more than what had just been stated?

A nod was returned to the king. Acknowledgement.

"Your errand was to bring him here—for what reasons, may I ask?"

So this was Legolas' father, seen through his eyes as a king. He was not harsh or even cordial…he simply was, it was an odd sensation, standing here, facing a being with an undeniable resemblance to his old friend and at the same time ridding itself of any connotations of warmth. And then again, no. Thranduil was not cold. He was indescribable, tranquil and stern, he wondered if he aspired to be this kind of king, mysterious to strangers and loved by his own people. _If you ever ascend the throne, if you ever win your queen._ He sighed inwardly.

Mithrandir sent me. He asks a favour of you: keep Gollum, somewhere secure where he will not wander away and into the hands of the enemy, it is imperative that this is done.

"Why so?" speech drifted lazily between the state of conception and birth. Aragorn had not been instructed to say much more.

"So this is Gollum," Thranduil resumed conversation, "it was he who found the ring."

Another nod.

A change of mood seemed to come around. Thranduil appeared almost amused, "So Mithrandir has not forgotten Mirkwood's expertise in holding diminutive ones prisoner."

"It is a hard thing to forget. Gandalf had quite an adventure that time." Aragorn nudged Gollum out from where he hid within the folds of the former's cloak. "Will you keep him?"

"He will not cause too much havoc, or will he?" Thranduil looked disdainfully at Gollum who had resumed his hissing and sobbing.

"It is unlikely. He is savage and bites and scratches but will not do much more."

"Fine. He shall stay." Thranduil waved a number of guards forth, "Take him to the dungeons." Aragorn was certain he had seen a wry smile. The guards did as told, snickering softly; apparently the elves had not forgotten that incident either and had instead turned into a public joke.

The pair waited for Gollum's guttural cries to cease in the distance as the elves grasped his slimy limbs and escorted him down to the wind cellars.

"And you," Thranduil returned his attentions to the ranger. "Your journey would have left you tired. Stay a few days." He waved another elf forth, this one Aragorn had not noticed until now, and as the elf stepped out from the relative gloom of the recesses of the room his features resolved themselves into something recognizable: Legolas.

-

It was a peculiar kind of reunion; quick and thoughtless when it occurred but it returned again and again many years later; this echolalia of the wood.

_--do you remember when that happened?_

_It was bitten with desperation only chilly with restraint_

_--yes, yes I do_

_--then I..._

_he reached over—there was the rustle of velvet, the environs spoke in a muffle—blonde hair cloth quick faster faster push and heat of thoughts all coming together and it was very quick and there was protest and voices murmurous_

_-_

"You have grown up, Estel—perhaps even a little too soon." The voice was merry and just as Aragorn had remembered it.

"My name is Aragorn now."

Legolas cast him glance and there was something in it which was inimitable—both in words and actions. He clasped the ranger's hand as they left the throne room, and the hand, slender and warm stayed there for a long time as they wound their way down corridors, some more populous than others, they walked and Aragorn felt the air change, moods were cast and undone like spells and neither said a word. There are situations in which dialogue is redundant, that was one of them.

They arrived by a tall darkly oaken door. It swung open with a light push. "Your room."

The ceiling vaulted in a graceful arc and the air was still, hushed, it was a fully amber room in the gentle sunlight that came in through the window, shot through with accents of green and goldenrod, landing in a square of gold on the wood floor.

Legolas crossed the room and flung open the window panes, "I prefer leaving the windows open. Shut them when you are absent—you have not forgotten the little horrors of the wood I told you about, or have you?" he smiled. Aragorn joined him by the window as the curtains billowed in and out, they swirled, filmy like haze and the wind blew its ever-changing repertoire through the trees.

"Elladan and Elrohir used to tell me tales about your woodland spiders too."

"They seldom brave populated areas—still, it would do to be careful." He turned away from the window and tapped lightly on another door Aragorn had not yet noticed, "the bathroom, I'll not bother explaining the mechanics of it—this pump," he continued with a finger briefly fluttering down to land on a faucet, "draws water from an underground spring. You push downwards." The hand exerted a little force—water like silver lilies falling and falling as they blossomed in momentary fullness.

* * *

Gollum pandered to the slow, tenebrous darkness found in the corner of his rather generous cell—but still a cell. It was inescapable, this prison of his mind and the ring shone bright bright. The precious the precious, its image was not dulled by the haze of time and distance. Ardour burned fiercely in the little throbbing heart—it was remarkable that he still had a heart, that it was not yet possessed by the precious.

And the lunar calendar seemed to have spun out of control, beyond regulation and normalcy, the anomaly of many suns and moons visiting him, revisiting him, the soft voices—gentle and easy like song—he could not appreciate such frustrations!

Where was Sméagol? Someone watched Gollum—was it Sméagol, it was short like him, plumper and bathed in the oddest rosy glow—dreams/ he would not, could no longer dream.

The eyes watched, sad sorrowful eyes from a sad sorrowful face. Did the figure—the little, what was its name?—want the precious?

"No, no! Precious is mine! Mine!"

Gollum's consciousness imploded into broken sobs, the elves found so much pity for him and yet so much disgust. Hate.

But no one should hate. No one at all.

* * *

To **LegolassQ**—thanks for the thought, and the advice. I'll keep it in mind. Meanwhile, I'll try as much as possible not to compromise.

Thanks for reviewing everyone, and particularly '**The doctor's in**': I really appreciate the advice. I'm glad that you chose to tell me even though you didn't leave an e-mail address. I don't mind. Really, so long as it's helpful. Thanks.


	6. Chapter 6

Beginning again

Life had been reorganized, shifted, _dis_organized and the elements would lean over to whisper to him, harsh and gaudy, there was the sensation of a wind-whipped, a tortuous, a bright, many-fingered-coloured deception and lust, the landscape came distilled and unreadable through this.

All this, Gollum saw; he finally understood horror, worse than the unending stalagmites and stalactites that had grown wild and spiteful, spiking the dank aridness of his cave. This was the horror of knowing that there was no salvation, not for creatures like him. He wanted it all. All the little things that made up life and day and reality.

The weird, wild-eyed faces would let him out, get some sunlight on his face, but still, it was denied to him, the world carried the fantastic distortion of smoke and screaming.

He bit them and they burned, he would hiss and try to think but find that he could not.

Try to think—that was funny, he had given up, given it all up, long, long ago.

* * *

Life resumed normalcy, just that during the certain minutes during which half-light towered over the forest things would seem different simply because they were present together, in the unthinkable combination: two adults.

The earth and the sky would mingle for just a moment each day, then be drawn apart as darkness came and usurped all. Day would resume by morning, then the line would be redrawn.

The forest was thick and the exhalations were as the voice that once breathed all o'er Eden. It was not anything like the sun-strained glory of Rivendell, nor was it like the openness of the plains in all their intemperance and bleak, full outlines. Things found transition here.

It was on a certain bleary morning, teetering on dawn, Aragorn remembered their old conversations about Mirkwood and her mysterious glamour.

-So we shall see it, Legolas had said.

In the rising light of late morning the trees cast shadows upon each other, on tree, on tree, on tree.

There was some more brutal part of Mirkwood, knotted tree roots skulking along the outskirts, insidiously winding their way into the heart of the forest. None of that, they went to the river, the one with the infamous story.

-Yes,_ that_ story.

Would you like to hear it?

-I think I'm quite familiar with that one. Bilbo's bthen, urged something in him. So he did, he went to Rivendell, the fC/p> 

-That's the one Bombur fell into. It _is_ a little too wide for any _wise_ person to jump.

His tone a little disdainful, not much resentment.

He continued –I did have a—an accident like Bombur's though, when I was still an elfling. Adar wasn't terribly pleased after he got over his worry. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere near the river for a long time.

-Oh did you?

-Stay away? Only when in the company of anyone who might tell.

Aragorn chuckled.

---

Before he left: -Remember, Gollum must not escape. Then he was gone into the whispers of the undergrowth; Legolas wondered: what do they speak of?

---

The orcs came, spread their pestilence and trenches of the dead lay still, festering with blood, anger and a lost cause.

Someone responsible spread his pale fingers, crimson in the reflected half-light of many fleeting souls as he looked at them. He was so very responsible.

-Gollum—he's gone.

---

-_go find him then,_ urged something in him. So he did, he went to Rivendell, the first step to finding and finding out.

-Return quickly. Said his father, he looked as he always did, but there was something special this time, there was the affection of a father and the power of a king, the dawn came and ignited the crimson coronal about his head it blazed more than the skirts of October poppies.

He did not say a word in return but nodded, the rider and his horse surged into the wood.

---

He came bearing bad news.

-Gollum has escaped.

A man called Strider received the news first in a lonely corridor, amorphous figures crawling about them, tremulous and distorted by lamplight.

He did not blame him.

Snow was bitter and the whiteness seemed a mockery. The taint was proof, not all that festered found its origins in Mordor, some had existed long before and raged, ravaged or simply hid itself, deceptive and perceptive.

In the pervasive chill that not even stone could keep out he would have been dreaming, but anxiety kept him awake. There was no fire, none was meant to exist here. Everything pale and belonged so utterly to the mountain, everything white and colourless that had sold its soul to the night.

The sun had dipped and shied away from this place, she always had and the inhabitants of the cave were withering. Legolas was reminded how completely mortal all of them were, even an elf, who could do nothing.

---

The depths of Moria yielded sulphur and brimstone and more sulphur and brimstone, here the elements of the world were tortured into something unrecognizable, the air ravaged by heat and the foul dust.

Something roared, he felt a very real fear, no being in middle-earth had been created to fend off this archaic evil—perhaps Glorfindel, who was not really an elf he had thought as a child, but…

The bridge was splintering, Gandalf blazed like the sun, truly immortal and truly uncontainable. This personification of wildfire and hemlock, tall beyond normal measurements, it whispered and Gandalf replied. Gandalf who was _real_ white, in all his intentions and power.

The hobbits knew the meaning of horror now, when it threatened never to end. Something in him burned—he should rush across that bridge, if nothing but to offer some feeble allegiance, thoughts were mangled, he couldn't think…

Two men however, did what he could not bear to.

The demon was extinguished and Gandalf was gone, his mystery unsolved, and the wild secretive universe rebelled against them.

He was gone. Everything became uncertainty.

---

Legolas remembered later, he found this impossible to forget, that Aragorn had done what he could not.

-Thank you.

Aragorn turned to him, -It was necessary.

Later, in the unspeakable depths of night, he wondered about the completion of a person. The Boromir kept watch, he was unapproachable to Legolas who spoke to him casually, but their air was always formal, distanced and spiked with respect and the threat of the unknown. The other man slept nearby, he could hear the hushed breathing of eight. Nine, so far from nine, so far from where they had been. He wiped a few wayward tears away, he should have been asleep, Aragorn had said that evening, -There will be a long march tomorrow.

Well, there always was. He got up soundlessly and fluttered like a shadow, surreptitious like one that did not belong.

He touched that sacred shoulder, once a child, now a man. Estel had ever asked him that, he was not certain how words could carry so much gravity and still remain simple, but he had told the child in a simple sentence: a king is only as tall as his soul. He made it understood then; no secrets between them, I know your past, you know mine.

-You've grown up and your soul is beyond leagues.

He had mentioned Boromir's bravery earlier, but the man was still mysterious despite having a character that was cleanly drawn that it was unnecessary to say a word about him. It had been formal and cool. Nothing like this.

For a minute he saw a child under the swathes of ragged fabric. He had not lost that youthful idealism. No, not at all.

* * *

_Thanks for reading, please review._

_Thanks to all previous readers. I know that nothing of import happened in this chapter, but I felt I needed to show certain moments to bind the whole story together—and also to show some character development and development in their relationships._


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